Does a Religious Upbringing Promote Generosity or Not?

[Sanguine]

In 2015, a paper by Jean Decety and co-authors reported that children who were brought up religiously were less generous. The paper received a great deal of attention, and was covered by over 80 media outlets including The Economist, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and Scientific American. As it turned out, however, the paper by Decety was wrong. Another scholar, Azim Shariff, a leading expert on religion and pro-social behavior, was surprised by the results, as his own research and meta-analysis (combining evidence across studies from many authors) indicated that religious participation, in most settings, increased generosity. Shariff requested the data to try to understand more clearly what might explain the discrepancy.

Questioning the Reports

To Decety’s credit, he released the data. And upon re-analysis, Shariff discovered that the results were due to a coding error. The data had been collected across numerous countries, e.g. United States, Canada, Turkey, etc. and the country information had been coded as “1, 2, 3…” Although Decety’s paper had reported that they had controlled for country, they had accidentally not controlled for each country, but just treated it as a single continuous variable so that, for example “Canada” (coded as 2) was twice the “United States” (coded as 1). Regardless of what one might think about the relative merits and rankings of countries, this is obviously not the right way to analyze data. When it was correctly analyzed, using separate indicators for each country, Decety’s “findings” disappeared. Shariff’s re-analysis and correction was published in the same journal, Current Biology, in 2016. The media, however, did not follow along. While it covered extensively the initial incorrect results, only four media outlets picked up the correction.

In fact, Decety’s paper has continued to be cited in media articles on religion. Just last month two such articles appeared (one on Buzzworthy and one on TruthTheory) citing Decety’s paper that religious children were less generous. The paper’s influence seems to continue even after it has been shown to be wrong. ...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/201909/does-religious-upbringing-promote-generosity-or-not

I didn't know where to put this.  We don't have a "Not-Science" topic, but "Politics" would have probably worked just as well.

[Wingnut]

Never heard of the study.  But If I had of, I would not have believed it based on my life's experience and the experiences of my catholic school peers.   Charitable acts of all ,whether it be donating your time or your money was common practice.  And Lord knows the church has its hands in a zillion operations :)

[berdie]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

I have known and know people with little or no religious background that would give you (or a needy stranger) the shirt off their back. I really think it has to do with a person's nature.

[Absalom]

Religion is a structured system of Beliefs and Faith while
generosity is an attribute/virtue motivated by the spiritual.
Psychology Today, a brainless lefty rag, doesn't know the difference!!!


 

[Smokin Joe]

Never heard of the study.  But If I had of, I would not have believed it based on my life's experience and the experiences of my catholic school peers.   Charitable acts of all ,whether it be donating your time or your money was common practice.  And Lord knows the church has its hands in a zillion operations :)

In my graduating class of 96 students, there were 5 volunteer firefighters.
Three of us ran Rescue Squad calls (EMS) also.

Yes, it was a Catholic School.

You see, we had been taught from an early age to 'walk a mile in that other person's shoes', and it is my firm belief that it made us more generous, of both our time and money.
But that, unlike socialist programs that rob the people at gunpoint and throw that money to the four winds often enabling bad life choices, came with the discretion to see that our efforts actually were doing good and not causing more harm as well.

Now, to the Socialist, not giving a junkie a fix might seem cruel, asking someone to get a job might be mean, but I believe if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish, he can eat for a lifetime, if he gets off his ass and goes fishing.

[Sanguine]

Religion is a structured system of Beliefs and Faith while
generosity is an attribute/virtue motivated by the spiritual.
Psychology Today, a brainless lefty rag, doesn't know the difference!!!

They were looking for a correlation between the two variables.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I suspect that the goal with this article is to question the wisdom of being religious as it does not promote 'goodness'.

Secularists like the libs will spew out the propaganda that the government, not charity, should be the central entity that takes care of citizens.

Diminish the role of charity, an overwhelmingly religious component, and presto, one has to have a growing government to satisfy citizens' needs.

[Smokin Joe]

I suspect that the goal with this article is to question the wisdom of being religious as it does not promote 'goodness'.

Secularists like the libs will spew out the propaganda that the government, not charity, should be the central entity that takes care of citizens.

Diminish the role of charity, an overwhelmingly religious component, and presto, one has to have a growing government to satisfy citizens' needs.

Charity is good for the spirit. Doing something nice for someone that you did not have to do is a gift that enriches the giver as much as the recipient.
Being forced to give at gunpoint (the Government version of Charity), is not charity, and makes for bitter and resentful people who will give less of themselves and their resources, partly because they have less to give.